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Free Speech on Trial

FrontPageMag – Free Speech on Trial…

The resulting case brings into bold relief the outsize power that political correctness and its more ardent executors wield in Canada. In the United States, a suit purporting to seek justice for a perceived slight involving nothing more than a difference of opinion would be laughed out the docket. But tolerance for legal frivolity seems to increase above the 49th parallel. A subsection of Canada’s Human Rights Act defines hate speech as speech “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.” By that impossibly opaque standard, Steyn’s article – or, indeed, any article – could theoretically be considered hate speech. In practice, as well, that has been the case. The Canadian Human Rights Commission, which enforces the act, has a record of conviction that recalls the awful efficiency of Soviet courts: In over three decades of existence, the commission has yet to find someone innocent.